“Is that why everyone was Mildewed in Rusty Hill?”
“Yes,” she said in a quiet voice. “They started to complete the roof, and the workers started to see confused snippets of Heralds. They were reported as Pookas, and the system swung into action to protect itself.”
There was a pause.
“So that’s what enlightenment feels like,” I said in a quiet voice. “You said cozy ignorance was a better place for people like me.”
“It still might be. And listen, I want you to know I’m sorry.”
I stopped. We were standing on the narrow area of safety between the spreads of two medium-sized yateveos. I had been in this situation before with her, and my heart fell. I thought we’d been getting along.
I turned to face her, and she looked at me apologetically.
“Do you have to?” I asked.
“I do. And I’m really, really sorry.”
She hooked a leg in mine and expertly heaved me off balance. I landed with a thump, and there was a sound like a whipcrack. I cried out in pain as one vine wrapped around my leg and another took hold of my arm. I felt the sensation of being lifted, and the ground and Jane moved rapidly away from me. I think she waved.
The Way Home
2.6.23.02.935: Residents may not keep pets in their room.
And this is where you find me now. Head down in a yateveo, musing on the events of the past four days and how I could have been so stupid as to deny myself the endless opportunities to avoid this particular destiny. Like most people, I’m not much scared by death, but swans, Reboot, creepy crawlies, my twice-widowed aunt Beryl, social embarrassment and loss most certainly did frighten me. Loss of my father, loss of Jane, but most of all, loss of my potential obligation. Not my Chromatic obligation, you understand, but the loss of my obligation to real truth and justice, deeper and more powerful than I would find in a thousand Rulebooks. I’d found enlightenment and a sense of purpose, and lost it again. But it had been mine, if only for a short while.
It began to darken. Not the darkness that was already within the yateveo, but an enveloping darkness, even blacker than the night but without depth or time. This was it. And as far as reporting what death was like, I can use only one word: colorless. But oddly, that wasn’t quite it. After what could have been anything between a couple of seconds and a century, I saw a dim sliver of light open up in front of me, and I believed, for a moment, that I was about to be reborn. Perhaps to another couple somewhere in another sector, and a long time after a forgotten Edward Russett was lost on a toshing expedition to the middle of nowhere.
But I wasn’t being reborn. It was the same old me, and I was flowing out of a split in the tree’s digesting bulb, coughing and spluttering. I felt someone place her mouth over my nose and suck out the liquid in a sort of power-assisted nose blow, and after retching up a stomachful of gloop that burned my throat, I managed to open my eyes. The first thing I saw was Jane’s face, staring at me with a concerned expression. We were sitting at the base of the trunk, with Jane holding the sharpened potato peeler she had used to slit the bulb. The yateveo was making halfhearted snatches in our direction but doing no damage.
“Phew!” she said, sticking a finger in my ear to clean it out. “You stink.”
I retched again and she handed me her water bottle. “Rinse.”
I took a swig and spat the foul-tasting liquid from my mouth.
“Were you almost gone in there?” she asked. “It took a while to get into the bulb.”
I nodded. “My whole life flashed in front of me. The last four days, anyway—which probably amounts to the same thing.”
She gave me a hug. “Oh, I’m so sorry—I should have explained. This is part of our cover story. But, hey, I’ve come to a big decision: That’s the last time I try to kill you.”
“Promise?”
“Absolutely. In fact, I may actually try to save your life if the opportunity presents itself. And if I ever threaten you again, you have my permission to give me a good telling-off.”
She smiled again. “You can call me by my name, too—and I promise not to thump you. Will you kiss me?”
So we did, there in the dappled shade of the yateveo, covered in digestive gloop and not an hour from the darkest secret of the Collective. It was, as I recall, every bit as good as I thought it might be.
“I may have trouble getting used to the new Jane,” I said. “I’m not sure perkiness really suits you.”
“It’s only when we’re together. Broken anything?”
“I think I landed on something. Something the yateveo couldn’t digest. Have a look would you?”
Jane had a look and laughed.
“What?”
“You have a spoon or a fork or something embedded in your left buttock.”
“Hilarious. Pull it . . . OW!”
“Sorry, what were you saying?”
And we giggled, then guffawed, then burst out laughing. Inappropriate, given the circumstances, but something of a relief.
“Was it really necessary to have me eaten?” I asked.
“That was Courtland we just got killed, pumpkin, not some poor Delta that no one gives a fig about.”
“Did you just call me pumpkin?”
She scratched her ear nervously. “Is that okay?”
“I suppose. Listen, you could have had yourself eaten.”
“What do you think I am, nuts? Okay, here’s the story: You get captured by a yateveo, and while Courtland is risking his life to slit the bulb and release you, he is grabbed and deposited in the same tree.
But because there is no gloop to break his fall, he breaks his neck. Stone dead in an instant.”
“How about that,” I said. “Courtland died a hero.”
“The best lies to tell,” said Jane, “are the ones people want to believe.”
I was lucky that the tree had been relatively young: The barbs were numerous and quite short, as opposed to the other way around. Despite this, my leg and arm were still painful, and the juices stung in my wounds. I was very glad when we finally reached the stream and I could rinse myself off and wring out my clothes. Once done, we began the long walk back to the base of the escarpment and the flak tower.
We didn’t talk for a long time, each of us consumed by our thoughts. It’s confusing to suddenly have to reappraise all you know, to rejigger one’s outlook in the light of new knowledge, and realize that everything you thought was truth and justice was little more than an elaborate fiction. Most of all, I couldn’t help wondering what my mother had suffered that required her to be Mildewed. I was only glad that my father had not been her attendant swatchman.
“Why did they have to kill all the Rebootees?” I asked, finally breaking the silence. “Why not just, well, reeducate them as they claim they do?”
Jane thought for a moment.
“I used to think the most ingenious part of the whole system was how color and mandate were interwoven. The Rules dictate every aspect of our lives, but our devotion to the Spectrum gives them credibility and relevance. But then I got to thinking that perhaps it was all much, much simpler, and that the complexity of the Rules and the strict Chromatic Hierarchy were there to serve a greater master.”
“And what’s that?”
“Continuous sustainability. A community where everyone has their place, everyone knows their place and works ceaselessly to maintain continuance. If you were to dispassionately consider the principal aim of the society to be longevity rather than fairness, then everything is downgraded to simply a means of attaining that goal. Rather than waiting for a resident to prove themselves disharmonious, the system simply flags them early and sends them off to Reboot as a precaution. If you think about it, the whole notion is quite ingenious.”